The sacrifice which we make of labor in exchange is therefore of two sorts, of an absolute and a relative sort. The discomfort we accept is in the one case directly bound up with the labor itself, because the labor is annoying and troublesome. In the case where the labor itself is of eudaemonistic irrelevance or even of positive value, and when we can attain one object only at the cost of denying ourselves another, the frustration is indirect. The instances of happily done labor are thereby reduced to the form of exchange entailing renunciation, the form which characterizes all aspects of economic life.

DEFINE: Defines the double nature of sacrifice in exchange: direct (labor's unpleasantness) and indirect (opportunity cost of choosing one object over another).

DEFINE: Distinguishes direct discomfort (annoying labor) from indirect frustration (renouncing one good for another), revealing that even happy labor involves sacrifice via renunciation.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 234